When I typed “gun facts” into my Startpage search engine, there were 67 million websites that were instantly retrieved. I was looking for just one: gunfacts.info, a website put together years ago by Guy Smith. It’s free and it’s helpful in responding to myths and distortions about guns and gun ownership. He updates it every year.
I am a member of the United States Concealed Carry Association (USCCA), founded by Tim Schmidt. With my membership I get a magazine, Concealed Carry. In the latest issue is “Facts of the Firearms World”. This outfit has great credibility with me so I didn’t do my usual background confirmation on them. Put all together, these facts are quite amazing:
The estimated total number of guns held by U.S. civilians is between 275 million and 300 million, about 89 firearms per 100 people.
The country with the second most guns is India, with an estimated 46 million guns in private hands, or about four firearms for every 100 people.
U.S. citizens might own between 275 million and 300 million firearms, but less than 100 million [people] actually own a gun.
With 5 percent of the world’s population, U.S. citizens account for about 40 percent of the planet’s civilian firearms.
About 50 million U.S. citizens own handguns.
U.S. citizens spend more than $4 billion each year on guns and ammo.
The state with the highest rate of gun ownership is Wyoming (63 percent).
The most recent estimate of the [annual] economic impact of the firearms industry in the Unites States: $31 billion.
The FBI has conducted 160 million background checks since 1993. In 2012, it conducted 16.8 million background checks, half of them for gun sales. A record number of 154,873 calls for one day’s background checks happened on Black Friday (November 23rd) 2012.
As many as 10 million U.S. citizens have current concealed carry permits. The top ten states for concealed carry permits are, in order: Florida, Georgia, Texas, Indiana, Tennessee, Washington, Alabama, Utah, Michigan and Ohio.
Mayor Bloomberg and his Mayors Against Illegal Guns (MAIG) have an enormous task ahead of them.
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